Yoshino: diversity, civil rights linked
An "explosion" of American diversity has influenced the legal debate over which civil liberties are protected by the 14th Amendment, Yale Law School professor Kenji Yoshino told a crowd of about 90 students, professors and community members in Dodds Auditorium yesterday.In a lecture entitled "The New Equal Protection," Yoshino argued that an increase in national diversity has caused courts to change the way they protect civil liberties.With arguments taken in part from his recently published book, "Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights," Yoshino contended that the old strategy of expanding civil liberties through a constitutional "equal protection" argument ? which subjected discrimination against groups such as racial minorities to "heightened scrutiny" ? is "exhausted" and experiencing a backlash.The courts are now avoiding "group-based identity politics," employing a universal rights argument instead, he said.